


Stolen Paradise

by StrawberryBubbles



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: I wouldn't necessarily call it graphicly depicted however, M/M, So yeah, kind of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:16:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryBubbles/pseuds/StrawberryBubbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras and Grantaire meet as messed up teenagers of rich parents, one desperately trying to get his fathers attention, the other desperately trying to avoid it. They end up joining the army together, creating a family within it's ranks, finally finding some level of happiness until an assignment they are on goes wrong and each thinks the other is dead. This is what happens five years later when they meet again in a bar in the middle of nowhere.<br/>Enjolras is ecstatic to see his best friend again, the man he secretly loves, but also nervous about Grantaire finding out that he is one of the founding members of group created to fight against the very people they each used to work for.<br/>Little does he know Grantaire has secrets of his own that he is just as nervous about Enjolras finding out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stolen Paradise

Enjolras tried to shake the stiffness from his legs. He had been sitting in the back of a cramped van full of computers and recording devices with one of his best friends Courfeyrac, while Combeferre drove them to a middle of nowhere town and then to an abandoned farm several miles outside of said middle of nowhere town. They had finally arrived, and after hours of sitting in the back of the van preparing, making sure the recorded devices could relay what they recorded to the computers in the van without detection, Enjolras was glad to finally be standing.

 

He exchanged a glance with Courfeyrac who was to stay in the van with the computers making sure everything went well on that end while Enjolras and Combeferre snuck into the building to place the recording devices. While Enjolras and Combeferre’s job was arguably more dangerous, Enjolras did not envy Courfeyrac having to sit in the cramped van for another hour which would then be followed by the drive back to the middle of nowhere town before he could finally stretch his own legs.

 

Combeferre walked round the side of the van and with a wordless exchange that consisted of mainly looks and hand gestures indicated that he would sneak round the back and cover the lower level of the building while Enjolras climbed the side of the building to cover the upper level. It was maybe a five minute walk in the dark from the tree cover where they had parked the van to the building. They walked in silence. Enjolras focused on breathing and tried to push away the memories his traitorous brain supplied reminding him of how different this would be if _he_ was still with Enjolras instead of Combeferre. Because _he_ was dead and had been for years, and Enjolras trusted Combeferre and had worked with him for years now.

 

Enjolras had reached the side of the building now and watched as Combeferre rounded the corner to enter through the back. _He would of looked back_ Enjolras’s traitor of a brain supplied, _he would have looked back, seen Enjolras looking and given his stupid two finger salute with that stupid grin of his before disappearing around the corner_. Enjolras tried to ignore it, it had been years, _years,_ why did his brain insist on continuously reminding him of _him._

 

He took one last deep breath, making sure his gloves were secure before he started to climb. They had cased the place weeks ago before coming up with a plan they were sure would work, he knew exactly where the hand holds were, how he would get in through the window as silently as possible.

 

Several weeks ago they had come across some information about this building. ‘They’ being the small group called Les Amis de l’ABC, who worked against corruption in government organisations for the betterment of society. And the ‘information’ being that this abandoned building in the middle of nowhere was being used by corrupt military officials to house stolen weapons to sell on the black market. They were hoping to destroy the majority of these weapons, liberate a few of the more useful ones to further their cause, and detain the people involved.

 

It had taken weeks of planning just to get up to this point, this point being the bugging and surveillance of the building to determine exactly what was being kept there, what they should destroy, what they should keep, who was involved and how they could achieve what it was they were hoping to achieve.

 

He reached the window and as carefully as possibly slid it open just enough to slip inside. As soon as he was in he gently shut the window almost all the way. Leaving it open enough that if he needed to make a hasty retreat he could easily, but not enough for it to be noticeably open.

 

He moved quickly and quietly throughout the upper level making sure he left audio and visual recording devices in all the right places so that Les Amis would be able to get all the information they needed. He kept an ear and an eye out the whole time, listening for any signs of the men who used the building, and any signs of Combeferre just moving below him. He heard nothing the whole time, and slipped out the window feeling proud of both himself and Combeferre.

 

As he reached the van he saw Combeferre already sitting at the driver’s seat and lightly tapped the side of the van in a previously designated pattern to let both occupants of the van know it was him, that he had been successful. Then he slipped inside, silently nodded at Courfeyrac, and Combeferres reflection in the rear view mirror, and tried to ignore the absence of a broad-handed clap on his shoulder and an exaggerated wink that used to accompany successful missions as the van pulled away from the building and into the night.

 

The drive back to the small town felt much shorter than the drive out, but then again it wasn’t immediately preceded by a six hour drive, and it was almost an unwritten law of the universe that the journey back always felt shorter than the one there. Combeferre and Courfeyrac talked on the way back, discussing the next stages of the plan, where they would be staying, when they would check in with the other Amis, and everything else that would follow. They didn’t even try to engage with Enjolras, they were used to the way Enjolras seemed to retreat to inside of his mind after a mission. They didn’t know that it was because he was thinking of missions of long ago, of a man who had died on a mission gone south way before they knew him, before he was anti-government and avidly anti-corruption, when he was just a soldier doing what he was told when he was told. Enjolras didn’t want them to know. If they knew he would have to talk about it, if he had to talk about it he would be forced to acknowledge how unhealthy it was to be so obsessed with a man who had died over five years ago. So he stayed silent, and he remembered the stupid salutes, and the ridiculous winks, and the loud laughter of Nathaniel Grantaire and smiled to himself, because Grantaire hated that name he always thought it was so pretentious, and at least he had that, at least he had his memories. He could have never met Grantaire, and then he would have nothing, he would be nothing but a spoilt rich kid trying to get his daddy to notice him by any means necessary.

 

In what felt like barely any time at all they were parked outside a small wooden house on the fringes of the town, at the opposite end from where the abandoned farm house was. Combeferre always made sure they had a house to rent, staying in a hotel just made it more likely that they would be found out before they achieved their goal with housekeeping coming and going. But if they stayed in a house they avoided that. And it seemed people found it much less suspicious for a group of young people to move to a small town than to stay as tourists for weeks on end. Especially if they talked often and loudly about how they wanted to ‘get away from the corporate greed of the city and to live off the land the way mankind is meant to’. In reality Enjolras wouldn’t mind that. Maybe getting a small self-sustaining farm with its own solar and wind power and live completely off the grid. But there was too much he had to do on the grid, he couldn’t even consider it at the moment. Maybe one day, when he is too old to climb walls and slip through windows, but not until then, and only if he lives that long.

 

Enjolras put thoughts of Nathaniel Grantaire out of his head, smiling at the thought of the name, the thought of Grantaire complaining loudly about how pretentious it was, Enjolras joined Combeferre and Courfeyrac in bringing the computers, tucked away discreetly in suitcases, and the other suitcases with their clothes and things into the house. The house had been sparingly decorated with the basic necessities, beds, couch, dining table, and a fully equipped bathroom and a kitchen.

 

When they were done the three of them collapsed onto the couch. In Courfeyrac’s case more literally than the other two, he landed with a heavy thump that forced the air out of his lungs making an ‘ugh’ sound.

 

“Ugh,” he said again, with more intent behind it. “I am so glad to be out of that van you have no idea.”

 

“We have some idea.” Combeferre responded. All of Les Amis were trained to complete any job necessary, they all had specialities, but really they could do any job they were tasked with, they had all had their fair share of hours sat in cramped vans while some else did something that allowed much more space.

 

Courfeyrac gave Combeferre a look.

 

“Well given you ‘have some idea’,” Courfeyrac raised his left hand in a half-hearted attempt at air-quotes, “then you could maybe give me a little bit of sympathy?”

 

“A little bit. Not too much though.” Enjolras cut in.

 

Both Combeferre and Courfeyrac smiled at him in the way they always did when he started talking again after missions, like they were worried that this time he wasn’t going to start talking again, and they were relieved when he proved them wrong.

 

There was a moment of silence, then Courf stood up from his place between Combeferre and Enjolras, slapping their knees on his way up.

 

“No really. Sympathy. In the form of a distraction. Please.” He clasped his hands together on the please, falling to his knees and giving them his best puppy dog eyes. And if there was ever an indication that Courfeyrac was going stir crazy it was when he started acting overly dramatic.

 

“We passed a pub about ten minutes down the road. We could probably walk there in about twenty, twenty-five minutes depending on how lost we get.” Combeferre offered.

 

“Yes! Please!”  Courf said jumping back onto his feet, grabbing their hands and dragging them off the couch towards the door.

 

Enjolras hesitated before Courfeyrac dragged them all the way out of the house.

 

“We should probably change first.” He said, gesturing to the all-black outfits all three of them were wearing from the job.

 

“Oh right, sure, I will see both of you back here in no more than five minutes” Courf said walking away from them backwards giving them what Enjolras was sure is his best attempt at a stern look.

 

Enjolras had wanted to have a shower, wash the dirt of the day off him, but he could wait until they got back, even if it did make him cringe slightly, changing into clean clothing when he himself wasn’t clean. He did quickly wash his face and made it back to the front door in the allotted five minutes, though Combeferre and Courfeyrac were already waiting there, Courfeyrac tapping his foot impatiently.

 

As soon as Enjolras was within arm’s reach Courfeyrac had Enjolras and Combeferre’s wrists in his hand again and was pulling them out the door and down the road.

 

Enjolras and Combeferre laughed to each other. Courfeyrac was the least suited out of all of them for spending drawn out lengths of time in small cramped spaces other than Bahorel that is, who has so much energy all the time he sometimes can’t even stay still for ten minutes at a time let alone close to ten hours. Courfeyrac, as a newly free man, now has what appears to be the energy of a hyperactive five year old. Walking doesn’t seem to be enough movement for him and he begins to click his fingers and hit the closed fist of one hand onto the open palm of the other in a rhythm only Courfeyrac seems able to keep up with.

 

After just over twenty minutes they see the bar just down the road named ‘The Copper Nail’ for no readily discernible reason. Courfeyrac speeds up as soon as he sees it, the others matching their pace to follow. They still fall behind slightly, and Courfeyrac is already standing at the bar ordering them all drinks when they catch up to him.

 

It isn’t long before they are ready, and the three of them each grab their designated drink before turning around to find a place to sit. Enjolras looks around the bar for the first time looking at a small room with an empty door-frame on the wall to the right of the bar leading  to another room, and small clusters of wooden tables and chairs, and dark red carpet. Courfeyrac gestures to the empty door frame indicating they look through there for a seat. Enjolras follows before promptly stopping in the middle of the bar.

 

He is vaguely aware of the drink in his hand dropping to the floor with a dull thud and its contents spilling across his shoe.

 

He is also vaguely aware of Courfeyrac and Combeferre turning back around to see what is wrong, seeing them come towards him, feeling their hands on his arms as they ask him what is wrong.

 

But all he can really see is the man, sitting just through the door frame, invisible from the bar.

 

The man with messy black hair and a green beanie.

 

The man who appears to be moving in slow motion raising his hand to bring a glass to his lips as he turns to see Enjolras and his blue eyes widen in shock as he too drops his glass.

 

The man who is supposed to be dead.

 

The man who is beyond all shadow of a doubt Nathaniel Grantaire.

 

Enjolras feels his lips quirk in a smile at the thought of his name, he always did think it was so pretentious.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure how I should tag this around character death, I mean characters think other characters are dead but they are not. And like it says so in the inscription, but if anyone thinks I need to tag this more thoroughly please let me know thanks :)


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